NBC Nightly News Bests ABC World News For The Week

NBC’s Nightly News was back on top last week, besting ABC’s World News by almost 300,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. David Muir and Elizabeth Vargas filled in for the vacationing Charles Gibson last week. Brian Williams and CBS’ Katie Couric anchored their respective newscasts.

(ABC also was impacted by WABC’s expanded coverage of last Wednesday’s steam pipe explosion in midtown Manhattan, which delayed the start time for World News.)

For the week Nightly News with Brian Williams was watched by 7.49 million viewers compared to ABC’s 7.2 million. Couric pulled in 5.71 million viewers. In the target demographic of 25-54 year olds, NBC scored a 1.8 rating followed by ABC’s 1.7 and CBS’ 1.4.